The Shaykh's correction of al-Mundhiri's tracing of the hadith.

The Shaykh : But the first hadith was narrated by al-Tirmidhi, who said: "A good, authentic hadith," and by al-Hakim, who said: "Authentic according to the conditions of Muslim."
There is some leniency or oversight in this tracing; for there are narrators and tracers of this hadith who are of a higher rank than the second tracer of this hadith, namely al-Hakim. He mentioned that the hadith was narrated by al-Tirmidhi and al-Hakim, whereas there is another tracer who is of a higher rank than al-Hakim and whose narration is purer than his, namely Ibn Hibban in his *Sahih*. So his right, if he wanted to be satisfied with two in the tracing, was to say: "It was narrated by al-Tirmidhi and Ibn Hibban." If he added more, that would be better. So he should have said: "It was narrated by al-Tirmidhi, Ibn Hibban, and al-Hakim." But this is something from which no one is safe; a tracer may be missed, so there is no harm in adding this third tracer, namely Ibn Hibban in his *Sahih*, to the two tracers mentioned in the book.